


Rien ne pèse autant qu'un secret

by inusagi



Series: de croire aux contes de fées [1]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Eggsy has a chip on his shoulder, Harry is a liar, M/M, Soulmate AU, The title is French but the story is English, and Merlin is very very stressed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:39:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inusagi/pseuds/inusagi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing weighs more than a secret.<br/>_________<br/>He wanted Harry to be happy, truly, but Merlin wanted to be enough for him. He wanted them to be enough for each other.<br/>And, really, for decades they had been. Merlin just had to pretend that they would be for decades to come.<br/>Pretences are, it turned out, really, really difficult to hold onto when staring at reality, written in plain black biro on a body bag.<br/>Name: Eggsy Unwin.<br/>eGGsy. Harry’s other soul mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rien ne pèse autant qu'un secret

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AflockOfBirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AflockOfBirds/gifts).



> This was...more difficult than I'd anticipated, but I hope you all enjoy it--especially aflockofbirds. I hope there was enough angst and smut in there for you! I have to give the disclaimer that I'm really bad at writing porn. Sorry! 
> 
> Also, I did want to add that, if there's interest in it at all, I do have more outlined from this 'verse, but felt like this was a better stopping point for now.

Merlin honestly felt a bit cheated by the cosmos. He’d tried—for decades, if one was being brutally honest—not to be cynical about this whole soul mate business, but he was fairly certain it was all a load of rubbish.

 

He’d been told growing up that once you found your soul mate, your life becomes _oh so happy_. Words like _peaceful_ and _serene_ get thrown around, as does the saccharine phrase _happily ever after_.

 

After all, when one is guaranteed to meet the person who owns the other half of their very soul, how can they be anything but happy?

And he was. Happy with Harry, that is. He’d been in love with Harry for the better part of thirty years, through fair weather and foul. They’d been there for each other through coups and assassinations, though illness and injury, through fear and grief.

Merlin _loved_ Harry. When he touched him, when their souls connected, it was hard to feel anything but the earth-shattering tranquillity of a fairy tale ending.

Except...

Except there’s a second phrase written on Merlin’s skin, right under Harry’s tidy, looping _Well, I'm not bloody chaining it up outside._

The second sentence was scrawled, with uneven, printed letters that stood out shockingly when compared to Harry’s penmanship.

 

_That’s fucked up, mate._

It had been a source of amusement to Merlin as he was growing up, the naughty words etched into his skin, but they had exasperated his mother nearly to the point of scandal. Bad enough that he had two soul mates—Christ knew how rare that was—but apparently his soulmates couldn’t even have the consideration to be _genteel._

If she’d lived, he reckons she’d have been happy with Harry, with his “I am first and foremost a gentleman” shtick. The other one, though...

Well, he had no way of knowing.

Which was rather the problem, wasn’t it? He’d never met his second soul mate. Even now, on the wrong side of fifty, he found himself holding his breath with every person he met.

Waiting to hear those rough words.

Hoping that he does.

Praying that he doesn’t.

And _that_ was the real kicker, the thought that kept him up at night. Part of him—a larger part than he’d ever admit—hoped never to meet Mr or Miss _That’s Fucked Up, Mate._ Despite the feeling of empty incompletion, the apprehensive butterflies that ran riot in his gut each and every time a stranger’s mouth opened to speak, he was bloody desperate that he never hear the words pressed into his flesh like a burden.

Harry...Harry had a second soul mate, too. One that he’d never met.

The handwriting didn’t match. Oh, Harry liked to pretend that they _could_. He would murmur comforting, encouraging words about changes in the way one writes when the fear became too much, too real, and he couldn’t breathe. Harry would draw him close, cradling his hairless head in one strong hand, and let him press his forehead against his own _You got clearance for that?_

It was proof of their bond, that first casual conversation about Harry’s stupid bicycle shortly after he became Galahad—proof that, regardless of the too-large, uneven _eGGsy_ there beneath his own claim on Harry, there was something beautiful and undeniable that drew them together.

 _eGGsy_.

It pissed him off, how such bloody gibberish could hang above his head like the sword of Damocles. _eGGsy_. What was that even supposed to mean?

It was a curse, this two soul mate business. It was a jumble of fear and insecurity. It was a mess of petty jealousy. It was hope and apprehension and the constant, sick feeling that you’re a puzzle missing a crucial piece and others may themselves go missing at any moment.

Because...

Because for all his pretty words and consoling embraces, Harry aches for his _eGGsy_. Merlin has _eyes_ , damn it. He can see the way Harry’s fingertips trace the letters when he doesn’t think he’s being watched, a far-off, melancholy look on his handsome face.

Merlin knew, of course he knew, what a horrible, selfish man it made him to hope Harry never met his _eGGsy_ as fervently as he hoped never to meet _That’s fucked up, mate._ He knew he’d burn in hell for that alone. Never mind all the questionable things he’d actually _done_ as a Kingsman, the _hope_ that the universe would withhold a literal piece of his soul, of his love’s soul— _that_ is why he deserved all the fire and brimstone.

He wanted Harry to be happy, truly, but Merlin wanted to be enough for him. He wanted them to be enough for _each other._

And, really, for decades they had been. Merlin just had to pretend that they would be for decades to come.

Pretences are, it turned out, really, really difficult to hold onto when staring at reality, written in plain black biro on a body bag.

Name: Eggsy Unwin.

eGGsy. Harry’s other soul mate.

Eggsy. Harry’s candidate.

Merlin felt the hot prickle of tears welling up and took a steadying breath. Harry, standing silently in the doorway, said nothing. There was nothing for him to say, Merlin knew, aside from empty platitudes and promises that nothing would change when they couldn’t possibly stay the same. It was funny—in a very unfunny way—because Merlin had _so much_ to say that he couldn’t make his mind choose just one.

“Lee’s son?” is what he finally settled upon.

“Yes.”

“So you...so you’ve known?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

Christ, he hated how broken his voice was.

“Darling—“

His patience, already worn thin, snapped. He threw the body bag at Harry’s head. It was neatly dodged, of course, hitting the wall with a sharp _thump_ that echoed in the empty room before it landed—label side facing upwards, mocking.

Name: Eggsy Unwin

Blood type: O +

Next of kin: Harry Hart

“How fucking long, Harry?”

Harry sighed, ever the put-upon party in any row, and squared his jaw. “He was six years old.”

It couldn’t have been more painful if Harry had physically struck him. He’d known for _decades._ He’d hidden it, stayed silent even in the face of Merlin’s fearful breakdowns. He’d _lied._ He’d lied for _seventeen fucking years._

“Go home, Harry.”

The other man took a step toward him. “You have to understand—”

“No,” he snapped, drawing Harry—his fearless Harry—up short in the face of his anger. “No, Harry, _you_ have to understand. I cannot do this right now. I can’t pat you on the shoulder and tell you it’s alright that you’ve wilfully deceived me for more than _half our lives together._ I don’t have it in me tonight.”

He took a deep breath and turned his back to Harry, watching instead through the two-way mirror as the candidates readied themselves for bed.

“You have a mission in under six hours,” he said, as calmly as he could. “And I have to drown them in forty-five minutes. I need to focus. Go away.”

Harry stood in the doorway for several more long minutes. He was probably, Merlin thought with more than a bit of bitterness, deciding whether getting the last word in would result in a broken nose or a drowned Eggsy. Fucking Eggsy, in his fucking jimjams and witty fucking comments to those spoiled fucking tossers.

Perhaps he _would_ drown the lot of them, and start over with a fresh batch.

Behind him, Harry had worked up the gall to speak, voice so sad and unsure Merlin didn’t have the heart to snap. “We’ll talk tomorrow?”

He managed a jerky nod, unwilling to lose any more ground. Let him stew.

He watched in the reflection as Harry grasped the doorknob, shoulders slumped and staring resolutely forward. He said “I love you,” and left. The _click_ of the door’s automatic lock echoed in the observation room.

Merlin refused to let himself cry. He knew that if he started, he’d never be able to stop, and if he kept thinking about what could happen, about what _had_ happened, he wouldn’t be able to do anything but sob.

So he watched, instead.

He watched Charlie, Rufus and Digby—Christ, who named these people?—snicker behind their hands like schoolboys. They even looked over their shoulders every so often to complete the effect. Hugo and Nathaniel were, by contrast, having a quiet conversation. Piers had decided on a subtle _fuck you_ to his fellow candidates and was reading a book on his bunk.

Which, of course, left Eggsy. Well...Eggsy, Roxanne and Amelia. Fast friends, they were, and it only took a few disparaging comments to rile up their maternal protective instincts.

Merlin scowled at himself, glad he didn’t say such a thing aloud. It was shitty and sexist—beneath him and unfair to the three of them. He’d known Amelia for years. She was lovely and competent, with good instincts and a short fuse.

He’d never met Roxanne in person, but she was Percival’s niece and he _never fucking shut up about her._ It was “Merlin, you _have_ to watch this clip of Roxy winning the under-10s Aikido championship! She knocked a boy twice her size unconscious in forty-five seconds with a single knifehand strike.” and “Look at this paracord survival bracelet my niece made for me at her international summer camp! See the fishing line woven in? It’s got hooks and weights and a flint.”

Christ, Merlin hated that bloody bracelet. It was tacky, it got in the damned way of the Kingsman-issued watch, and Percival’s gloating when it was useful was unbearable. Smug bastard.

They were fast friends, the three of them, and it rolled Merlin’s stomach. He wanted to hate them all, on principal. Eggsy in particular.

But instead he found his eyes returning to the boy, again and again. He was shirtless, wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms Harry had produced from God knows where, and was sprawled out on his bunk, joking with his new mates. It was hard, so fucking hard, not to stare at the boy’s handsome face, and impossible to stop his easy laughter from tugging at Merlin’s heartstrings.

Disgusted with himself, if not with Eggsy, he settled for turning off the lights and waiting for the candidates to fall asleep.

☂Ⓚ☂

He’d conducted the water test three other times during his tenure as Merlin, and had gone through it once. In all of the previous tests, no one had given a single thought to the mirror. In one, they’d taken apart an air vent and then had crashed through the ceiling onto a very, very expensive vehicle. Arthur had not been best pleased. Mostly, however, one or two clever candidates remembered the factoid about the U-bend and they all waited it out. Excepting, of course, the mole, who panicked and drowned.

Not Harry’s boy, though. No, Eggsy didn’t even take a deep breath from one of the hoses before literally punching through glass. Merlin had to both marvel at his lung control and admire his impulse to find an escape route for them all, rather than save his own skin.

He congratulated him, then Roxy and Charlie for being the two predictable problem solvers in the group, and declared them all failures and burst their little bubbles of survivalist triumph.

This part, he thought, had always been more telling than the actual test.

Most hopefuls were sufficiently upset at the death of their comrade and anxious about the intensity of the trials to come. That was rather the point of the exercise.

Occasionally, there would be a recruit who’d have a breakdown. Such a shock placed atop an adrenaline high could be a tad unpredictable, and the hysteria-survivor’s guilt combination was quite a mess.

Rarer still, and more worryingly, were the impassive ones, the ones who would shrug it off as a testament to their own superiority and never think of it again—interestingly enough, there were two in this group, Charlie and Digby. They’d have to be watched.

Eggsy, though, he just _had_ to be different. Where the others had shuffled out in search of dry kit and warm towels when Merlin had dismissed them, Eggsy had stayed behind.

Merlin stood at the threshold, awkward and angry, but fully aware that he couldn’t leave a recruit alone after such an emotional trauma, no matter how unpleasantly his shoes squished or how much he wanted to be away from this boy, in particular. He pulled a Xanax from the aluminium bottle on his key ring, swallowed it dry, and steeled himself for Eggsy’s tantrum. Or breakdown. Or general continued existence, the wee bastard.

Shards of glass crunched under Eggsy’s bare feet, and his pyjamas hung low on his hips, the weight of the water threatening to pull them down. Merlin forced his gaze higher, past his still-damp stomach and higher. His shoulders were slumped, but it was the morose, resigned expression on his face that caught his gaze.

“That’s fucked up, mate,” he said, after a few long, sorrowful moments.

Merlin gasped. He knew it was clichéd, he knew it was unbecoming for a man of his age and position, but he couldn’t help himself. If Eggsy noticed, he chose not to comment on it.

“What are you going to tell ‘er family?”

He didn’t answer, thrown as he was, but followed Eggsy’s pointed finger to gaze upon the limp body in the centre of the wrecked room. Amelia was fine, had a mouthpiece in even now, but Eggsy couldn’t know that. And he couldn’t know—

The grinding sound of broken glass turned his attention back to Eggsy, who was now much, much closer. The younger man was trying a bit too hard at casual defiance, squinting up at him and angling his chin to give him a bit of stubborn rakishness.

“Is that why he didn’t give me no shirt, then? So you could check’n see if they’s right words? Go on, have a look.”

And, God help him, he did.

_What’s your name, young man?_

Harry’s tidy handwriting, a polite question answered on his own skin with a child’s untidy scrawl. And there, just below Harry’s, was Merlin’s precise writing, words spoken only hours ago.

_In you go._

He reached out, unthinking, to trace them.

Eggsy batted his hand away in irritation, but surged forward to slam their mouths together. His lips were soft and worryingly cold.

Merlin felt like he was on fire, like Eggsy’s water-cooled lips and sharp, nipping teeth were the only things keeping him from burning to ash. The boy was aggressive, consuming, and Merlin found himself getting lost to it.

He wrapped an arm around the smaller man’s slim waist and pulled him closer, moulding the wiry body to his own while Eggsy’s hands scrambled for purchase on his hairless head. Merlin chuckled at the impatient, irritated sound that filled the small room and slid his thigh between Eggsy’s. He wanted to be closer, closer to the boy, to meld them together, to plaster their bodies together so tightly that it would cement the jagged pieces of their souls together forever. And Harry would—

Merlin couldn’t decide what, exactly, shocked his brain into operation. It could have been the frigid water from Eggsy’s grey bottoms had finally soaked through his trousers and pants to make frankly unpleasant contact with his prick. It could have been the sound of his tablet clipboard shattering on the hard floor. It could have been—and likely was, loathe as he was to admit it—that the thought of Harry was like a slap in the face. They’d quarrelled over just this sort of thing—having a bloody _experience_ with Eggsy while keeping the other in the dark—and he wasn’t about to fall into the same sort of behaviour.

It wasn’t...well, it wasn’t exactly the same, of course. Harry hadn’t snogged the boy, hadn’t taken him to bed. Merlin hoped not, at any rate. But if there were the three of them in this, then they would _all three_ be in this.

He pushed Eggsy away, gently but firmly, and one final look at his face nearly made Merlin’s resolve crumble. The boy’s skin was flushed, his eyes bright and unfocused, his swollen lips parted.

He forced himself to turn away, scooping up the broken clipboard.

“This,” he started, voice thick. He cleared his throat and tried again. “This will not be happening.”

He strode into the corridor and faced the other candidates with as much dignity as a man with a massive wet patch in the front of his trousers could hope to.

 _Tomorrow,_ he thought. Tomorrow he would have his talk with Harry and they’d all be able to move forward.

☂Ⓚ☂

Tomorrow, of course, had been a clusterfuck. Harry had gotten himself exploded by a mystery substance and was in a months-long coma. Eggsy had surprised one and all by progressing beautifully in his training, but was equally known for the chip on his shoulder and going off on world-class strops.

Frankly, by the time Harry woke up in June, Merlin was quite looking forward to pushing him out of an airplane.

It was difficult to hold onto anger for months at a time, and more difficult to hold onto it when the object of your anger may well never wake up. As time wore on, Merlin found the pain of being lied to being replaced more and more by the constant fear of Harry dying. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to truly survive losing his partner if the last thing they’d done was have a domestic.

He’d been at the shop, overseeing the candidates’ sewing lesson, when he got the call that Harry had woken. _Of course_ he was at the shop, hours away even underground. _Of course_ fitting room one was occupied by a client, delaying him by hours more. _Of course_ Harry would be sleeping again—though it was, thankfully, actual sleep—by the time he arrived.

The doctor had assured Merlin, both on the phone and in the corridor, that Harry had already made a full recovery. They weren’t sure what about the explosion, exactly, had caused the coma, but it hadn’t affected Harry’s memory, cognitive skills, or—in the long run—his motor skills. Harry might be a bit overtired and shaky for a few weeks, but that was a result of inaction rather than injury.

 

Christ, but it was a relief, just to see Harry curled up on his side rather than on his back. The sight was an indication of normalcy—the only time he’s ever seen Harry flat on his back on a bed _outside_ of hospital...well, he wasn’t convalescing. More than that, though, it allowed him to slide in beneath the covers and wrap his arms around Harry’s too-thin body.

It had been so long since he’d held Harry, since he was so close that he could feel the other man’s steady heartbeat against his own chest, rather than watching it in the tiny green spikes and valleys on the heart monitor.

Merlin savoured the moment, just breathing in the comforting scent of his partner and feeling in the miracle that was the slow, slumbering rise and fall of Harry’s chest. He doesn’t realize he’s crying until a sob slips from his lips. By then, he’s unable to stop.

Movement jostled him slightly until groggy arms pulled him in close and trembling fingers caressed the back of his neck.

“There, there,” Harry murmured, familiar words spilling from his lips even half asleep. “I’m here, darling. Everything will be fine, not to fret.”

Merlin tried, he really did, but attempting to hold back only resulted in adding body-wracking hiccoughs to the equation. Harry, bless him, didn’t seem to mind. He simply continued rambling soft, soothing nonsense and rubbing small, gentle circles on Merlin’s back.

He didn’t know how long they lay cuddled like that. It could have been hours. It _felt_ like hours, before he finally started to pull himself together. Some great, scary taskmaster he was. If the candidates could only see him now, if _Eggsy_ could—

Harry captured his lips, kissing away the last of the hiccoughs along with the self-deprecation.

This, even when everything else was buggered all to hell, _always_ made sense. Kissing—touching—Harry never failed to provide that bloody heavenly feeling of rightness.

Harry’s lips were chapped and his ridiculous beard scratched at the skin of Merlin’s face. His fingers hadn’t lost their tremble, and Merlin knew that he should put an end to it, should draw those fingers away from where they struggled at his zip, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Those little reminders only egged him on, proving that Harry was really _here_ , awake and in his arms, still alive and still his.

Their kiss smothered his needy whine when Harry triumphed over his trousers and pulled Merlin’s prick free of his pants without bothering to shift clothes around further.

Merlin pressed against Harry’s shoulders, pushing him onto his back on the narrow bed. Harry went eagerly with a nip at Merlin’s bottom lip and a tight twist of his hand. He fit himself between Harry’s obligingly splayed thighs and tugged the elastic pyjama bottoms down his hips.

He nearly came at the first too-hot press of his prick against Harry’s, pressed between their bodies, and he dropped his head onto Harry’s shoulder to regain a bit of control over himself. He grasped Harry’s hips, trying to keep him still, but between the ragged, panting breath in his ear and the desperate, urging hands grasping his back, his sides, his arse, anywhere within reach, Merlin knew he was fighting a losing battle.

It was nearly overwhelming, after so many touch-starved months. It wasn’t just the roll of his hips against Harry’s, their hard cocks sliding together against their sweat-slicked stomachs, or how he was _fucking roasting_ in his jumper. It wasn’t even the abrasiveness of Harry’s beard rubbing his chin raw or scratching the soft skin of his throat, or the soft whimpers that filled the air when he suckled violet bruises beneath Harry’s ear.

No, it was the _contact_ that threatened to unman him. Merlin had his arm wrapped around Harry’s shoulders—both supporting himself and embracing the other man—and the other wrapped around the small of his back, cradling Harry in the cage of his arms as though he might vanish if he let go. He could feel Harry’s breath on his skin, feel his heartbeat thrumming along with his, even through Harry’s pyjamas and his jumper.

It was too much, almost too perfect.

They were never going to last long, not after so much time and certainly not with so much intensity. It was—to Merlin’s surprise—Harry who went first, pressed up against him so tightly that Merlin could feel each twitch of his cock on his own stomach.

It really _was_ too much, and when his truly bloody _glorious_ rush subsided, Merlin found himself loathe to let the moment end.

In the morning, they’d have to talk. They had to confront the deception, and the foolhardiness, and yes, the insecurity. They had to decide how they wanted to proceed with...with Eggsy. But, for now, he wanted to confront fuck all. For now, he just wanted to lay in Harry’s mercifully loving arms and pretend that every little thing would, as the wise man sang, be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Harry and Merlin's soulmate phrases/tattoos come from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. <3 Thanks for reading.  
> [](http://statcounter.com/shopify/)


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